More Little Gods of Planegea

31 Jul, 2026

There was a bit of confusion, I understand, about July's RPG Blog Carnival, so that Seed of Worlds and Sea of Stars are both hosting it this month. That works just fine for me, because it turns out I have more to offer on the topic. For Sean Holland, I wrote "Little Gods of Planegea," which introduces some substrata gods for David Somerville's stonepunk setting published with Atlas Games. For xaosseed of Seed of Worlds, I'm writing some more. Please see that previous post for an explanation of what gods, and especially substrata ones, are in the Planegea setting.¹

Collapse-of-the-Sky

High above a mountain pass, wedged among crags and clefts, is hidden a startle gnome village (p 37 of the Star-Shaman's Song of Planegea). The pass below them is the gnomes' way in and out of the world, but it's also the world's way to them, making it both lifeline and threat. Fortunately, the pass came with a natural defense: its particular placement, and the angles and slopes of the mountains, caused a twisting wind to pick up at unexpected moments, buffeting incautious travellers back down the slope or tumbling into the valley far below. The gnomes knew the signs to take cover from a sudden gust or to avoid a journey altogether: a particular scent, a strange colour of sky, a subtle shift in temperature. Predators and invaders were ignorant of these secrets, however, which kept the gnomes safe many times. It should be no surprise, then, that as the Worldheart's magic pooled in the region, it was this capricious wind that became a god. The resident gnomes, in their odd way, called him Collapse-of-the-Sky.

The wind god Collapse-of-the-Sky (chaotic good) is, of course, invisible, and is felt more than seen. Yes, he tosses snow and dust about wherever he is, and petitioners can literally feel his touch as a stiff breeze or terrible gust, but those near to him also feel a kind of wildness and adventure, excitement mixed with fear. He prefers gnomes to all others, but he'll bless any spirited risk-taker who makes a great boast; any who fail to make good on that boast, however, will find that he won't bless them so readily again. Otherwise, he takes seriously his duty to defend the mountain pass and those who live above it, driving back invaders or tossing them into crevices when he can.

The only attendees Collapse-of-the-Sky keeps are his visitants, some of whom lurk invisibly, the better to help with defense. He does have shamans and guardians in the village above, who descend from time to time to visit him, but mostly he keeps his own wild company, happy enough with the indifferent peaks and those gnomes who travel to and fro through the pass.

Collapse-of-the-Sky's domains are anything to do with windstorms and weather; he also takes any domains that have to do with mischief and protecting people from outsiders (but not anything to do with law or hierarchy). His visitants are usually one refractor (pp 364, 366), which stays hidden unless needed, and eleven glimmers (pp 363-364). Use an invisible stalker² stat block for Collapse-of-the-Sky himself, adjusted to be a substrata god as per the instructions on page 301 of the SSSP.

Ghat, Rival of Jrik & Jrik, Rival of Ghat

The dread spellskin³ Zal-Duhk bore the amulets of two shield guardians when she died in an ambush, victim of a still-unknown assassin. Her body was burned but her possessions were all left there on the field. The two constructs, whom she had called Ghat and Jrik, stood in the field unclaimed. Weeks later some brave scavenger looked over what there was to find, but took only salt, gems, and trade goods and left the rest behind, perhaps fearing that even after death Zal-Duhk's curses lingered. So they stood motionless for years, those two wood-and-stone bodyguards. A generation of folk feared them, distrusting all the works of Zal-Duhk. The generations after also told tales about the dread spellskin, so it was common for youth to prove their courage by climbing on them. Despite their ominous presence, the pair were absorbed into three nearby clans' sense of place and identity. One day, they began to move and speak on their own accord, for they had become godlings (chaotic neutral).

As it happens, that reckless scavenger long ago had hung the amulets on the shield guardians, perhaps as some peace offering for what he took. However, he'd made the easiest mistake: he matched the amulets to the wrong constructs. Ghat bears Jrik's amulet and Jrik bears Ghat's. Both are now free-willed⁴ and don't have to obey one another's orders, but all of the other amulets' effects are in place. Each desires independence above all and cannot abide the power that his rival holds over him. Their hallows, 25 feet in diameter, are five feet apart at the nearest, so it would be easy enough to duel with spell and visitant, except that their proximity also means that they share damage equally; any harm done to one is done to the other. Therefore they are in a war of wits and subterfuge. Ghat schemes for ways to steal his amulet back from Jrit, while Jrit schemes to steal his amulet from Ghat.

Local clans have built half-circle palisades around the constructs, hung with torches, hides, and coloured fabrics, and often make no distinction between them in terms of worship and petition. They have few partisans in their little war. Guardians by nature, they reflexively help protect their visitors if asked, and they help protect their petitioners' freedom in particular. However, Ghat and Jrik both value their own liberty too highly to make lasting commitments. Gods do as gods will, Ghat says. Gods have no need of promises, Jrik says. Anyone who claimed either's amulet, however, could expect great rewards for it, or make great demands. That being said, their fates are bound together and any enemy of Ghat is an enemy of Jrit, and vice versa; a god-hunter foolish or daring enough to attack one will find that the other immediately joins the fray. If they ever wind up with their own amulets, their conflict will immediately end, but they don't trust each other enough to simply exchange the amulets by themselves.

The domains of both Ghat, Rival of Jrik, and Jrik, Rival of Ghat, are anything to do with fighting and magical knowledge. Ghat's visitants are usually four flying swords and up to eight homunculi, while Jrik's are a single animated armor and up to eleven homunculi. Use shield guardian stat blocks for both, modified to be substrata gods. They have typically stored carefully-chosen 1st-level spells on each other, like sanctuary or shield of faith, set to activate for their own benefit.

Hrea Unchanging

Planegea's terror birds are not just apex predators, tall hunters of the plain; something about the birds spurns magic, and they seem to hate casters and to delight in spilling their blood. The goddess Hrea has inherited the anti-arcane character of the andalgalornis (p 360) she once was. In her grassy hallow, the world stays as it is and follows its natural laws. Woe unto those who stray from her strict sense of how things are and how things ought to be.

She is no aimless predator now, and many mortals visit her hilltop for advice. Her intellect is sharp and she has a mind for custom and law; if a petitioner explains their people's folkways to her, she will instruct them in the correct way to conduct themselves and to resolve their conflicts. By now, in fact, she does not always need the explanation: she has a wide knowledge of various people's customs across the Great Valley and even the giant empires. She's also a stern but capable teacher of hunters and will share secrets of medicine and herbcraft to gatherers. Moreover, Hrea is a carnivore still; mortals fleeing a big cat or ferocious dinosaur will find an ally in her if they can make it to her hallow. Like any god, she expects tribute and worship in return, but no more than is fair.

However, the instincts of goddess and andalgalornis war within her. As a terror bird, she hates magic. As a divine being, she takes shamans and guardians, and she casts her own spells when talon and beak cannot complete the task at hand. The balance, then, is this: she has sworn she will tolerate the magic of her own shamans, guardians, and visitants, and she'll immediately kill any others who cast magic within her presence. No magic user who mutters even a cantrip may expect any mercy; the terror bird runs too deep in her. Druids wed together the goddess and the andalgalornis: she will tear them to pieces if she learns what they are, whether or not they perform magic in her presence, and should they escape her hallow she will send her hunter-visitants (usually up to four andalgalornis, plus eight vultures) after them. (For more on gods' hatred of druids, see pages 23, 65, 237, and 297.)

Hrea's domains are anything to do with law, the hunt, or the natural world, and knowledge of its healing properties (though not the Life domain itself). She also favours domains that have something to do with protecting the world from aberrations, the undead, and other unnatural corruptions.

Repulsive Quyyag

The hammertail spellskin man Palescale was eaten in his sanctum (pp 71, 150) by a foul monstrosity, some mishmash of centipede, maggot, and naked molerat. No one knows where the thing came from, or what it was doing there: did it crawl out of the Venom Abyss (pp 160-161) as one of the jungle's stranger products, or did Palescale make the thing himself? No one knows how the creature became a god, either, because no one knew it was there until it had already achieved theosis. Was Palescale trying to make a pet godling? Did it just eat the divine ivory(p 297) in his sanctum of its own mindless accord? Or did the world's pooling magic just have no where else to go? If Repulsive Quyyag (neutral evil) knows how he came to be this way, he hasn't said.

Palescale's sanctum is now, also, Repulsive Quyyag's hallow, and he has been an avid student of its contents. In fact, the god is now a savant of the arcane, though he does not ink his skin like mortal casters do; he's bound to the sanctum, so the working-out of each spell is in sight at all times. Even if it weren't, he has the strange mind of a god, not a mortal, and may not need the reminders. Whatever the case, he wishes to learn still more about magic, both arcane and divine, so he invites spellcasters of all kinds from across the world to discuss with him what they've learned. Many take him up on it, despite his hideous appearance and reek of brimstone, and he has an impeccable reputation for allowing them to walk away again. He is greedy, of course, and has a way of getting more information out of these exchanges than his visitors do, but he does still make it worth their while. He's also willing to take on warlocks, demanding in exchange that they venture places he cannot go and extract relevant information. Though he is far from a centre of magical knowledge, he does have contacts among the Recusance (pp 254-256) and the Gift of Thirst (pp 244-247), who try as earnestly to exploit him as he tries to exploit them.

Of course, as a fiendish god, Quyyag is evil. It doesn't serve him to devour the magic-users who visit him, but he will capture anyone who strays into his hallow and has no talent for magic or no wish to share their knowledge with him. Some of these he devours, immediately or at a later time. Others he keeps as potential subjects for any experiment that he wishes to conduct with his collaborators. Moreover, he doesn't take defection lightly: he sends his warlocks and monsters out hunting for anyone who breaks a pact with him, to be brought back alive if possible. Among these fugitives is his last spellskin-shaman Oia, who still hides in Seerfall (pp 209-211). Repulsive Quyyag has also learned that the Worldsingers (p 219-220) have sent double-agents to sit with him, observing the other guests and feeding him false information in exchange for true; there's little he can do against them from his sanctum, but he'll reward anyone who can give him actionable information.

Quyyag's domains are anything to do with learning magic and performing weird biological experiments. His visitants tend to be quasits or imps, not favouring one or the other; he has no interest in the feud between the winter gods and the Riverlands idols (pp 235-257). Use a spirit naga stat block as his base, adding the substrata god's Innate Spellcasting in addition to the naga's existing Spellcasting trait. After all, he is both an fiendish god and a merciless spellskin.

Waxa-and-Xawa

In the Great Valley⁵ there's a canyon that remains flooded for most of the year along half its length. Once upon a time, if a person stood in just the right place, when the daystar was at a particular spot in the evening sky, the sunlight would fill the silhouette made by the canyon's contours and it would seem like a blazing warrior stood there. What's more, that light would reflect up from the still water, so a second mirrored warrior joined her below. The shape of the canyon's walls was just right so that the resemblance was truly uncanny. No one can see this phenomenon any longer, of course, because the illusion and its reflection have become a goddess even more glorious to behold.

Waxa is the warrior who stands on the water's surface, and Xawa is the warrior who most often stands below it. Xawa doesn't always mirror Waxa any longer, though she sometimes does, and she doesn't always remain below the water, either; in times of emergency or ceremony, she joins Waxa above it. It's artificial to speak this way, however; although many think of Waxa and Xawa as twin goddesses, the Two-and-One is instead a single goddess in two forms. Waxa-and-Xawa (lawful good) has a single divine mind, bilocated though she might be. This unitary mind is bent toward justice. She does care about custom, law, and tradition, but only as the context in which justice takes place; these are how expectations are managed, and people cannot be judged truly without understanding the expectations placed upon them. However, these are not her first concern. Her first concern is that all receive what they give.

This goddess of evening light has a shaman, of course, to perform all the correct rites and to help manage those who visit her. But Waxa-and-Xawa is not a goddess who prefers to surround herself with soft-handed shamans and their assistants. She prefers her judges (this is how she names her retainers) to take up arms and shields, and most of her devotees are guardians, ascetics, or barbarians burning with holy zeal. She trains them herself in both arms and judgement and, when someone comes to her with news of some injustice, she will send her judges out to correct it. (The Council of Day and Kraia's Children have both worked with her judges in the past and might again.) The Great Valley is full of injustice, however, and Waxa-and-Xawa is but a small godling, so she must be careful in the kind of aid she promises. More often than not, she seeks only to restore the victims, not bring the villain to heel. There's little she can do against a giant warband. She hasn't forgotten the villains, though, and should she ever grow mighty enough, she will bring her blazing wrath upon them. Anyone who aids her in this cause will find her an honest and supportive, if somewhat humourless, ally.

Waxa-and-Xawa's domains are anything to do with sunlight, laws upheld, the arms carried into battle, and those who carry them nobly. For visitants, she prefers two choristers (pp 364-365) to act as support casters and ten glimmers. Use two knights for the goddess, wielding boomerangs (pp 99-100) instead of heavy crossbows. Although each knight can occupy different positions and take its own actions and movement, they are just different expressions of the same goddess, rolling only once for initiative and sharing uses of the Legendary Resistance and Innate Spellcasting god features. This does mean that if one knight uses Gather Magic, both of them benefit from it.

#Planegea #gods #monsters #rpg blog carnival #weird fiction